Swiss industrialist and diplomat, David de Pury, dies

This content was published on December 27, 2000 6:13 PMDec 27, 2000 - 18:13

David de Pury negotiated on behalf of Switzerland in world trade talks

(Keystone)

One of Switzerland's best-known business leaders, David de Pury, has died aged 57. A seasoned diplomat, he was the Swiss negotiator at the GATT world trade talks, and a champion of the free market.

De Pury died in hospital in Zurich, a spokeswoman for his consultancy company said on Wednesday. He was suffering from cancer.

A former diplomat, he negotiated on behalf of Switzerland at the Geneva-based General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) - now the World Trade Organisation.

He held a number of government posts between 1970 and 1991 - among them positions in the foreign ministry in Bern. He also represented Switzerland in the Hague, Brussels and Washington.

In the late 1980s he was also Governor for Switzerland at the Inter-American Development Bank.

De Pury held a number of high-profile business positions. He was co-chairman of ABB between 1992 and 1996, and was a board member of a number of other major companies, including Nestlé, Ciba-Geigy and Zurich Insurance.

He stirred up controversy with his "white book" in 1995, calling for a liberalisation of the Swiss economy. His critics accused him of trying to dismantle the welfare state.

In 1996, he founded his own company, de Pury, Pictet, Turrettini.

De Pury was also chairman of the French-language daily, "Le Temps", and vice-president of the Lucerne classical music festival.

Comment on this article

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.